Harlan Coben and Reese Witherspoon: a suspenseful pairing

Four months into 2025, and there are three adaptations of author Harlan Coben’s books on Netflix — Missing You, the Polish adaptation of Just One Look, and Caught, set in Argentina. Two more adaptations are in production, and his latest book, Nobody’s Fool (published by Penguin Random House) has just been released. There is also the thriller he has written with actor-producer Reese Witherspoon coming out in October.

“I can’t share anything about the novel,” says Coben, 63, over a video call from New Jersey, where he lives. “I can, however tell you how it happened. We’ve known each other. Reese has read my books. I’ve seen all her movies. She called saying, ‘I want to talk to you about an idea I had’.” Coben was wondering how to tell Witherspoon that it would not work. “I don’t collaborate on books or stories.”

But when the star of Legally Blonde told Coben her idea, he was sold. “I said, ‘We can also do this’, and we started talking, knocking it back and forth. Next thing you know, I’ve got a pen and paper and I’m starting to write. And three hours later, we’re like, ‘Why don’t we try to write this as a novel together?’”

Witherspoon is the perfect partner, says Coben, whose books have sold over 80 million copies worldwide and been translated into 46 languages. “I don’t know if I’ll collaborate on a novel with anybody else. Reese is so smart, and also is so great with people. She knows when to push me. We helped each other be more creative. With Reese, I would probably do it again.”

Coben says he did most of the writing. “It was mostly about talking out the ideas with her. We created our own mixed voice. We email or text every day and talk about the book all the time. We both are obsessed with it.”

The three shows on Netflix, almost simultaneously, Coben says, is not by design. “It just happened. We were filming them all around the same time. I’m not the one who does the scheduling, Netflix decided to do it this way for the year.”

Next up is an adaptation of his 2023 novel, I Will Find You, with Sam Worthington of Avatar fame playing the father serving a prison sentence for killing his son. “We start filming in a couple weeks, sometime in April. I’m excited about working with Worthington. We are also filming an English series based on my book Run Away (2019), with Minnie Driver, James Nesbitt and Ruth Jones.”

Writer’s empathy

Nobody’s Fool, published last month, is a case of the screen inspiring the book. It marks the second appearance of Detective Sami Kierce from Fool Me Once. “Nobody’s Fool was inspired by the 2024 adaptation of Fool Me Once. Adeel Akhtar is one of my favorite actors and I wanted to work with him for a long time. We hired him to play Kierce for the TV show. And as I watched him, I thought, ‘This guy has got more stories to tell’.”

Taking place a year after the events of Fool Me Once, Nobody’s Fool finds Sami at his lowest. “He has lost his job and is in disgrace. When he was 21 years old, he took a college trip with some friends, met a girl and fell in love, like it happens on these kinds of trips. One day he wakes up, to find her murdered, and he runs. Now over 20 years later, he’s teaching a class of misfits at a night school in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He sees a woman in the back of the room, and realises it’s her, it’s Anna, the girl he thought was murdered all those years ago, and his world explodes.”

Every novel starts with an idea, Coben says. “Then I ask, ‘Who’s going to tell the story?’ So sometimes it’s Myron Bolitar, a couple of times it was Wilde [The Boy from the Woods, The Match] and now it is Sami. I do plan on writing Sami again, but man plans and God laughs.”

While the tone of the novel is ironic, like the Myron Bolitar novels, Coben says, Sami is a little more damaged than Myron. “He’s more impetuous and gets himself in trouble. I wanted it to be in first person, which I don’t usually do. I wanted to be in his head, he’s funny. Myron is a big, strong guy, 6’4” and over 200 pounds, while Sami is little and channels things differently.”

Sami, like actor Adeel Akhtar who plays him in the TV adaptation, is of Pakistani origin, says Coben. “Half of him is Pakistani and the other half is something I’ll save for another book.” Their attitudes are different, Coben says, because they come from different worlds. “I wanted the book to be fast-paced and wanted to be with Sami and enjoy his company.”

Though he mostly writes in the third person, Coben says he chose a first-person narrative for Nobody’s Fool “because I wanted it to be Sami’s book”. It was not difficult getting into his head. “I spoke to Adeel a bit and also spoke to some other people, and had them read the book to make sure I didn’t make any mistakes. My job as a writer is to be empathetic — not necessarily sympathetic, but empathetic. You have to be able to see the viewpoint of all the characters in a way that works,” he signs off.

mini.chhibber@thehindu.co.in